Federal subsidies needed to move green products?
July 31, 2009 by Tom GuayPosted in: Latest News & Views, News
When consumers say they prefer green products and want to buy them, that doesn’t mean they’ll pay whatever premium price a manufacturer demands.
High prices are why so many fancy, energy-efficient appliances collect dust in retailer warehouses. They work great and help reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but they’re a lot more expensive than the standard units they’re meant to replace.
It’s not all the manufacturers’ fault. They redesigned all sorts of appliances to meet federal energy and water efficiency standards. But the high-price strategy hasn’t set any sales records.
Solution: Get a federal subsidy.
General Electric (GE) seems to be taking the lead to have taxpayers help pay to unload some inventory. The subsidy plan is buried in the greenhouse gas cap-and-trade bill adopted by the House and now before the Senate.
The bill (click here) includes provisions that would pay “awards” to manufacturers like GE for each high-efficient unit sold. As reported by GreenBiz.com, the bill by Democratic Reps. Henry Waxman (CA) and Ed Markey (MA) would pay manufacturers:
* $75 for each dishwasher
* $200 a refrigerator, and
* $300 per water heater.
These award payments would go to the manufacturer, presumably to cover the discounting necessary to get consumers to actually buy the products.
Meanwhile, GE has created a “net zero energy home” program to help consumers maximize savings by using appliances that meet federal energy standards.GE’s announcement is here.
Tags: cap-and-trade, energy efficiency, General Electric, greenhouse gas emissions, subsidies
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January 19th, 2010 at 10:23 am
If the value of the product or the smooth words of a salesman can’t sell it, then of course it should be the responsibility of all of the citizens to foot the bill to unload it.
Take for instance the hybrid car, it’s quite a deal with the state and federal governments rebates… right? Lets see you buy the car and it gets almost the mileage stated on the sticker but then you bump a pole backing up at Wally World. You now take the car to a body shop and find out that the first three shops cannot even work on the car because they can’t afford the high voltage rated tools nor the friction welder required to properly weld the alloys your car is made from. You finally find someone that can make the repairs but your jaw drops when you find out that for your bumper core and plastic cover, your looking at over $1200.00 just in parts, but you need your car so you have it fixed. Things go well for a while but then the four year mark comes around and you find it’s time to replace that 1500 pound battery in the back seat. Once again your jaw drops when they give you the $3000.00 price for the battery plus environmental fees for disposing of the big box of lead, mercury and acid that you just removed from your car. But once again you need your car, so you have it fixed. Later that year you are side swiped. The first responders that arrive first don’t have the tools to deal with the high voltage dangers associated with your car so they call heavy rescue in, they are ten minutes away. By the time they get you out your 50 minutes into your precious golden hour and you still have to be transported to the med center. Is it still the deal you thought you were getting? Oh yah don’t forget what criminals often do when they ditch stolen vehicles, they push them into rivers and lakes. Just imagine what one of those batteries will do to the ecosystem of that waterway.
Now take for instance the front load washer, it uses 1/4 the water as the traditional top load model but oh just don’t add that one towel to the load of Levi’s or that machine will walk out on you. So instead you was that almost full load of Levi’s and then you wash two towels to keep the load even followed by washing the five shirts by themselves that went with the almost full load of Levi’s you wore… oh yah don’t forget to separate your colors too. That’s how we save water, energy, and soap. It was worth it though, we got our $75 bucks for buying it.